Hi,

Has anyone been asked by a client to track welding rods on any projects? We were recently asked to do this. I was asked why the client would ask us to do this. I don't know if it has to do w/ "real property" and is a property tax-related reason, or if it is an environmental/sustainable reason. There is piping associated with the... Read more

Dear Colleagues:

This is a request from AIA COTE Advocacy to sign another petition on behalf of your firm. I know it's incomprehensible that we have to do this, but we at AIA COTE Advocacy think the US Federal Emergency Management Agency's removal of the term "climate change" from all their strategic planning documents is evidence of an... Read more

Hi All,

It's been a great week to get the message out about the importance of sustainability in our work, and this group brings such a rich and nuanced perspective to the table. I'm asking, if you published something for earth day this week for external consumption, could you share that here? I'm curious to see if there are common themes... Read more

HGA is collaborating with the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP) to research how the AE industry is currently using climate projection data, and what they need in order to grow their use of data. MCAP is currently producing a set of dynamical downscaled climate projections for the state of Minnesota and unlike other... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of The PVC Debate: A Fresh Look.

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:


1. Examine the actual cost-effectiveness of PVC in terms of quality.
2. Explain what makes PVC a health hazard.
3. Recognize market effects of PVC's durability and... Read more

There has been some great press in the last couple of days related to Healthy Building Network's (HBN) newly released report "Chlorine & Building Materials Project".  That report is over 200 pages long, but there is some great commentary available that makes the top issues much quicker to grasp.

Chlorine is used to make PVC and PVC... Read more

Hi Gurus, given these crazy times and many good people being laid off - I'm hoping this is coming at a good time! Hope you are all safe and healthy! It's also flexible so if you are a parent of young child(ren) - also a good 'pandemic job' - sad that that's a "thing" now!

Job description: Project Manager for Green Building Startup

We are working on a tenant improvement and want to determine the embodied carbon on bookshelves, product display cases, and desks. Initially finding that Tally is not reading furniture, casework, or fixture families. Are there any tips and tricks you have found to be successful for modeling or defining FFE items in Revit and quantifying... Read more

My firm didn't have representation at the winter summit, but I've just read the report (thank you, RoseAnn!), and was really glad to see there was conversation around mass timber. I'd love to talk with anyone who was involved in that roundtable to get a deeper download about the discussion. We've been doing a lot of mass timber buildings and... Read more

Whether you’re attending Greenbuild 2024 or live near the Philadelphia area, join us for BuildingGreen’s annual Greenbuild Show & Tell! The event will take place from 6:30-9:00 pm on Tuesday, November 12th at Jacobs, with the first hour for socializing and the 5-minute presentations starting at 7:30pm. Light refreshments and beverages will... Read more

Team,

As you all probably saw, Boston is discussing using both CEI (carbon emission intensity) and EUI as basic scope of work.  Maybe the more surprising thing is China announced a new building code next year to include carbon emission analysis as a basic scope of work for all buildings.   New buildings in 2022, among other things,... Read more

As I prepare to search for summer interns, I'm wondering what colleges and universities have programs for sustainability in the built environment. Are there any that you all know of? I am trying to find alternatives to the traditional architecture programs that we track. Thanks

Plans are coming together for this Summit! Here's what we know (at least tentatively) so far:

Location:
Chicago, SmithGroup office

Timing: 
July 9-10, 2019

1:00 p.m. start time on 9th, 3:00 p.m. end on 10th

Here are additional slide decks from people who presented in one of our general sessions: at Max's Pot, or in the mornings. Also Jerelyn's Wednesday evening presentation on BuildingGreen's work on sustainability literacy.

Among those included here are my slides on the Rich Earth Institute and urine diversion into fertilizer--did you... Read more

Hi Everyone!

Does anyone have a good resource for whole-building embodied carbon benchmarks broken down by building use and building category (structure, foundation, envelope, interior)?

I know of CLF’s 2017 Benchmark Study (great resource!) and the One-Click LCA study on European Buildings but are there any others?  I know many... Read more

Hi Folks - sorry for the late notice, but I just heard about this two days ago and needed to get confirmation that I could share the request with htis group.

The opportunity is for business leaders in energy, efficiency, construction and design (i.e. all of us!) -

As you know, the flow of the historic federal infrastructure and... Read more